When shopping at a retail establishment, a customer often wishes to obtain or purchase a number of goods. The customer may not be able to carry all of the goods to the check-out area or to their car. In order to alleviate this problem, many retail establishments provide shopping baskets or carts. A problem with baskets is that the customer still must carry the basket while shopping. If the customer shops for a long period of time or if a number of goods are purchased, the customer may find it uncomfortable if not impossible to carry the basket and goods.
Wheeled shopping carts provide a storage area for the goods a customer wishes to purchase and makes it easy for the customer to transport the goods. A customer pushes the cart about the establishment, placing goods in the cart along the way. Ultimately, the customer pushes the cart to a check-out or purchase point. Once the goods have been paid for, the customer normally still needs a convenient means to transport the goods from the establishment, such as to their car or home.
The parking areas of many establishments are often quite large and the distance from the check-out area of the establishment to a customer's car may be quite far. Usually, the retail establishment permits the customer to utilize the cart for this purpose. After purchasing their goods, customers may push the loaded cart from the establishment over a parking area to their car. The customer then unloads the goods from the cart.
A problem now arises in that the cart is located outside of the establishment. Most customers are unwilling to push the now empty cart back into the retail establishment, and thus the cart is left in the parking area. Because the cart is wheeled, once left unattended the cart may roll about the parking lot. Wind and gravity may cause the cart to roll at various speeds and in a variety of directions.
The unattended or “runaway” cart as such carts are often referred to may roll away and be lost by the retail establishment, at great cost to the establishment. Moreover, the carts may cause injury and damage. For example, the cart may roll into a vehicle parked in the parking lot and damage it. The carts may also roll into moving traffic or into pedestrians, also causing damage and injury. Because of the rather high incidence of damage caused by unattended carts, but not wishing to take away the convenience of providing the carts to customers, many establishments post signs warning that damage from run-away and unattended carts may cause damage and stating that the establishment is not responsible for damage thereby. Nonetheless, retailers often have many claims filed against them every year arising from runaway cart damage and injury.
As one attempt to alleviate the above-stated problems, some establishments have created cart return areas in their parking areas. These areas generally comprise an area closed on two or more sides by fence-like structures. It is intended that once a customer is done using a cart, the customer will roll the cart to one of the semi-enclosed cart return areas.
There are several problems with this attempted solution. The apparatus comprising the cart return normally comprises a tubular aluminum or other metal structure. The structure may be quite large and relatively expensive. The cart return areas normally consume several parking spaces in the parking area. Because of the size and cost, an establishment may only provide one or two cart returns in their parking area.
Because of the limited number of cart returns and the likelihood that a cart return may still be a significant distance from a customer's car, many customers still do not return their carts. In addition, the configuration of the cart return does not ensure that those carts which are returned are secured. The semi-enclosed nature of the return permits customers to push the carts into the return area. The carts are generally secured by being prevented from rolling away by engaging a portion (such as a long horizontal rail) of the cart return structure. Because one or more portions of the cart return are open and the wheels of the returned carts are not engaged, one or more carts may still roll out of the cart return area and into the main area of the parking lot.
Some security devices have been proposed to prevent customers from removing carts from the area of an establishment. Some of these devices are arranged to lock one or more wheels of the cart. Such devices are intended to prevent the theft or negligent removal of carts and are not useful in solving the above-stated problem. First, these devices generally are arranged to “trigger” when the cart reaches an outer perimeter beyond which the customer is not permitted to travel with the cart. It is not feasible to arrange such a device to trigger once a cart is left unattended at any particular point in a parking lot to prevent the cart from rolling away once unattended. Once the lock is triggered, store/owner personnel must reset the lock in order for the cart to be useful. It is also not feasible to have an arrangement where once a cart is left unattended, such as in a parking lot after use, a lock is triggered which must be reset in order for the cart to be reused. This arrangement would cause substantial time and money loss in resetting the locks.
A method and apparatus for securing a cart which overcomes the above-stated problems is desired.